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KINCARDINE, Ontario — Ordinarily, a proposal to bury radioactive waste in a scenic area that
relies on tourism would inspire “not in my backyard” protests from local residents — and relief in
places that were spared.

But conventional wisdom has been turned on its head in the Canadian province of Ontario, where a
publicly owned power company wants to entomb waste from its nuclear plants 2,230 feet below the
surface and less than a mile from Lake Huron.

Some of the strongest support comes from Kincardine and other communities near the would-be
disposal site at the Bruce Power complex, the world’s largest nuclear power station, which produces
one-fourth of all electricity generated in Canada’s most heavily populated province. Nuclear is a
way of life here, and many residents have jobs connected to the industry.

Meanwhile, the loudest objections are coming from elsewhere in Canada and the U.S. —
particularly Michigan, which shares the Lake Huron shoreline with Ontario.

Critics are aghast at the idea. They don’t buy assurances that the waste would rest far beneath
the lake’s greatest depths and be encased in rock formations that have been stable for 450 million
years.

“Neither the U.S. nor Canada can afford the risk of polluting the Great Lakes with toxic nuclear
waste,” U.S. Reps. Dan Kildee, Sander Levin, John Dingell and Gary Peters of Michigan said in a
letter to a panel that is expected to make a recommendation next spring to Canada’s federal
government, which has the final say.

The decision on the

$1 billion Canadian project could influence the broader debate over burying nuclear waste deep
underground, said Per Peterson, a nuclear engineering professor at the University of
California-Berkeley, who served on a national commission that studied the waste issue in the United
States. The U.S. government’s plan for building a repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada has been
halted by stiff opposition.

“Demonstrating that this facility can be approved and operated safely is important because it
can improve confidence that future high-level waste facilities also can be operated safely,”
Peterson said.

The most highly radioactive waste generated at nuclear plants is spent fuel, which wouldn’t go
into the Canadian chamber. Instead, the site would house “low-level” waste such as ashes from
incinerated mop heads, paper towels and floor sweepings. It also would hold “intermediate waste” —
discarded parts from the reactor core.

The project would be operated by Ontario Power Generation, or OPG, a publicly owned company that
manages waste generated by its nuclear reactors and others owned by Bruce Power, a private
operator. Officials insist it’s the safest way to deal with radioactive material that has been
stored above ground since the late 1960s and needs a permanent resting place.

“We’ve had many scientists and engineers studying this for many years,” OPG spokesman Neal Kelly
said. “They’ve concluded that it will not harm the environment or the public.”

Larry Kraemer, mayor of Kincardine, says most of his constituents don’t share fears about the
waste. The risk of radioactive pollution is “so low as to be almost unimaginable,” he said. “The
people here draw their drinking water from the lake. We’re certainly not going to take any chances
with it.”